


The vessel cracked side to side

by Signe_chan



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-17
Updated: 2013-03-17
Packaged: 2017-12-05 15:31:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/724869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Signe_chan/pseuds/Signe_chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘It worked,’ Dean confirmed. Sam nodded. He’d never been more happy to be broken.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The vessel cracked side to side

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Trojie for beta reading!

It started as a sharp stabbing pain in his abdomen, intense but bearable, and all at once it exploded within him, like a fire spreading outwards and consuming him. He couldn’t remember how or why, couldn’t think at all. He lay there, gasping for air between his screams.

It took what felt like hours for the flames to fade, leaving his body a burnt out husk of charcoal lying on the ground. He became aware again - of movement and voices around him. Someone touched him and it felt cool, soft, like salvation. Eventually he was able to move again. To push against the cold concrete of the warehouse floor. To reach, grasping, for the hand that had soothed him.

He found Dean, of course. Dean’s grim expression the first thing he saw when he finally let his eyes drift open. He blinked, then smiled. He was alive.

‘Did it work?’ he asked, surprised to find his voice came easily to him though his throat felt like sandpaper.

‘It worked,’ Dean confirmed. Sam nodded. He’d never been more happy to be broken.

***

It was three days before Lucifer came to his dreams again. Sam had been waiting, counting down the days until he could finally claim this victory. The devil took one look at Sam and seemed to know he was different. He circled him at a distance, observing, then all at once stepped close, peering into Sam’s eyes.

‘What have you done?’ he hissed, reaching out to fist a hand in Sam’s hair. Sam didn’t fight, this was only a dream and after this it would be over.

‘I’ve broken myself,’ he said, low and confident. ‘Profaned my body so completely that no angel can ever use me as a vessel. Even if I consented, which I never would, you could still never have me.’

‘It’s just a part of the dream,’ Lucifer hissed, but the panic was there on his face. Sam just stood, passive, as Lucifer looked for the lie in what was the truth.

The devil studied him, and Sam watched as his face twisted from panic to outright anger, the sneer marring the face of his current vessel.

‘I will undo this,’ he swore, but Sam just laughed. He knew it couldn’t be done, that the ritual had been irreversible. There was a price, of course. There was always a price. A stain on his soul, but he was bound for hell anyway so what was one more stain? Lucifer left and Sam woke with a start, laughing to himself because they’d actually done it.

***

That should have been the end of the story.

***

It was two weeks before Lucifer appeared to him again. Anger still burnt in his eyes as Sam watched him peacefully from across the meadow.

‘Haven’t you realised you can’t reverse it?’ Sam asked, letting his body fall back into the grass and the flowers, their soft scent filling his nose. He didn’t remember most of his dreams when Lucifer didn’t visit them, but he got the impression that a lot of them were like this now. Peace at last, his main part done.

‘Yes,’ Lucifer said. Sam listened to him move closer, heard the grass break, but was still unprepared for Lucifer suddenly dropping to sit on his chest, catching his wrists and pinning them above his head. Sam pressed back but the devil held him easily. ‘What do you imagine happens now, Sam?’ he hissed, pressing closer. Sam struggled to throw his weight off, but he knew it was pointless. Even in his own dream he couldn’t overpower Lucifer. ‘Do you think that now I can’t use you as a vessel I’ll go quietly back to my cage?’

‘You can’t win in a fight against Michael without your true vessel.’

‘He doesn’t have his true vessel either,’ Lucifer said with a shrug. ‘True, it’s not how I wanted this to end but I’ll still win. I always win, Sam. And when I do, I’ll come for you.’

‘I’m no use to you any more,’ Sam protested.

‘That’s not the point,’ Lucifer said, leaning in close and whispering into Sam’s ear. ‘You’re mine, I won’t let you go.’

***

They talk in the Impala. Endless rounds of theories and ideas and pointless plans. They know none of it will work but they don’t dare to stop talking because what isn’t said in those moments is worse. The knowledge that Lucifer will fight without his true vessel.

Once, in the dead of night in a charmless hotel room Dean offers himself to Michael. Sam hears it, the silent acceptance whispered when he’s not meant to hear. He sits up, already begging Dean to take it back, but Michael doesn’t come. They don’t ask why, can’t face it. The weight of the world has rested with them for so long and now, suddenly, it’s gone in the most terrible way possible. They can do nothing to stop this any more and Sam doesn’t know what to do with that.

Cas is still with them, more often than not now. He brings what news he can. Forces are moving. Michael has a vessel. Not his true vessel but a vessel of the Winchester line. Lucifer is confident, making himself known more every day.

All they can do is watch. It’s a torture like they’ve never faced before.

***

Lucifer still comes to his dreams, maybe once a week. He grows more confident with every visit, which scares Sam more than he wants to admit. He shows Sam the battles he is fighting and those he is preparing for. Shows him the legions of hell ready to raze the earth. Shows him how useless it truly is to fight.

In his dreams Lucifer touches him, moves him, manhandles him in a way he never did before. It’s as though he’s decided that though the interior of Sam’s body is blocked for him, he’ll just manipulate it from the outside. Sam fights but he knows he can never fight hard enough. Knows he’s at Lucifer’s mercy.

Sometimes, in his dreams, Lucifer will hold him down wherever they are. Push himself up against Sam like the time in the meadow, run his hands over Sam’s body almost as though he’s imitating the touch of a lover. He laughs when Sam tries to push him away, says Sam can’t keep him from what’s rightfully his, and carries on. It’s in those dreams that Sam realises what Lucifer intends for him when he finds him. What he will do to him, how he intends to own him.

He doesn’t dare tell Dean. Things are bad enough without that.

***

They try to stop the apocalypse, of course they do. They chase clues, come up with theories, act out plans. It’s all for nothing. When the final battle happens they’re on the other side of the country. Cas, almost entirely without grace now, looks up sharply and then begins to weep. Later he will tell them he wept for the loss of thousands of angels, gone in a minute in a battle they never stood a chance of winning.

In that moment, though, none of them say anything, for as Cas howls his grief the sky turns black. At first it seems like a fast moving cloud but soon it becomes clear that instead it’s a swarm of demons, free at last.

Around them, the world burns.

***

Sam attributes their surviving the end of the world to Lucifer. Dean attributes it to Cas. Sam hopes Dean’s right.

***

They aren’t the only survivors. Though many are possessed by demons or killed, some are left. They do what they can to help them in those first days, so many of them are so scared and Sam doesn’t know what to say to them, to do for them.

Society falls apart around them and the demons move in. They take the humans as slaves, as amusement. He and Dean hide, they’re good at that at least. They watch in horror as the demons torture people in the streets for fun and know they can’t do anything about it. Know, despairingly, that it’s only a matter of time before they’re caught.

A week after the apocalypse Cas declares the last of his grace gone. Dean brings him a bottle of cheap whiskey and they drink it together before Cas curls himself in Dean’s lap and sobs. Sam sleeps in a different room that night, despite the danger, giving them what comfort he can.

That’s also the night Lucifer comes to him, appearing in his dreams for the first time since the end of the world. This Lucifer is restored, radiant, so clearly a king and so clearly a superior being that Sam doesn’t know, for a second, how they even thought to try and fight him.

‘I won,’ he said, simply, and Sam can only nod his head in agreement. Lucifer won.

‘I’ll find you, you know,’ he said, soft and low. ‘I’ll find you and when I do, you will never escape me again.’

Sam wakes in a cold sweat. He doesn’t tell Dean.

***

After that, Lucifer visits his dreams every night. He shows Sam the cities he’s burnt, the people he’s killed. He holds him Sam and makes him watch the death and destruction, whispers sweetly in his ear as the world burns around them. When he’s there Sam can’t talk, can only fight, but he can’t help but think that Lucifer only allows that because it amuses him.

He always finished by promising to find Sam and kissing him softly on the cheek.

***

Dean develops a cough. It’s a strange, rattling thing that sounds almost wet and makes Sam worry. Cas worries, too. He hovers, drinks more than he should whenever they can get their hands on the stuff. They run and hide but they know it’s useless. They search for a holdout, some place humans have managed to keep for themselves. They have to believe it exists.

Sometimes Sam thinks the demons are toying with them. That Lucifer is toying with them and that’s the only reason they’ve escaped so far.

Winter sets in and it seems worse than any winter before. Dean’s cough gets worse, Cas gets thinner, paler. It seems impossible to find a room to hide where it isn’t damp and where everything doesn’t stink of mold, though Sam tries. He knows he looks a mess too, his skin feels thinner on his bones and everything seems to ache.

Sometimes Dean’s coughing keeps them all awake all night. Sam is almost glad of those times, an entire night without Lucifer.

***

‘He won’t wake up,’ Cas said, poking at Dean’s side, and Sam went to him. He shook Dean but he knew it was useless. He was burning up, so hot to the touch, his body still wracked with coughs and Sam couldn’t bring himself to say that might be the end, though he couldn’t help but think it. Instead he helped Cas to make Dean as comfortable as they could and left them to find a place to sleep.

***

‘Please,’ he begs, and he’s surprised his voice works but apparently this is one of those nights where Lucifer wants to hear him. They’re stood in what appeared to be the ruins of a medieval castle. The walls were painted with blood now, paintings and tapestries ruined forever by its stain. ‘Please, I want to make a deal.’

‘Why, Sam,’ Lucifer said, kneeling by him and reaching over to run a possessive hand down his face. ‘What do you think you can bargain with?’

‘Myself,’ Sam said, letting himself lean in to the touch a little. It wasn’t hard. Lucifer had become almost indulgent in his treatment of Sam. Almost kind, and it had been so long since Sam had felt kindness like that. ‘I’ll come to you, submit to you. Whatever you want, you can have me. Just please, please don’t let Dean die.’

‘Why do you think I’d want that?’ Lucifer asked with a smirk. His hand suddenly tightened where it had been stroking Sam’s hair, pulling him roughly closer instead. ‘You think I want your feigned submission? No, Sam. I want you to fight me. I want to own you, and I will own you, but I intend to fight you for every piece of your control until you forget about Dean, forget about everything other than me and being mine. I think we’re off to a roaring start, don’t you?’

‘No,’ Sam said, but his protest was weak and lost when the devil kissed him, pushing against his mouth and splitting him open and there wasn’t a thing Sam could do to resist him.

***

Dean’s fever broke in the night. Cas slid into the room where Sam lay awake, the taste of Lucifer still on his lips, to tell him so. They hugged briefly, treasuring a moment of hope in the darkness. A few days later Dean was ready to move again.

Sam knew, now, what he’d thought all along. Knew it was a game, that Lucifer was playing with them. He knew this should have made him lose hope, made him give in and lie down and wait for his fate but it didn’t.

Instead he packed up his things and pretended that Dean’s cough wasn’t as bad as it was and moved them on.

After all, if it was a game, he might win. No matter how badly the hand was stacked against him, there had to be hope.


End file.
